D.C.’s Pit of Despair
By FRANK BRUNI, NYT
There are countless oddities in the way Washington works, but few as mystifying as lawmakers’ definition of the word “friend.”
In other, saner walks of life, it means someone you yearn to see. In the Senate, it can also mean someone you yearn to see under the wheels of your sport utility vehicle, writhing in agony and wheezing surrender.
I assume this was the usage that Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, had in mind when he called Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, “my friend” during a closely watched speech on Monday. After all, everything else about Reid’s remarks and the furious days leading up to them reflected a state of play between the two parties, and the two men, that no conventional dictionary would ever describe as amicable.
Right now, “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” as the Senate has been called, looks a whole lot more like the set of “The Jerry Springer Show.” Is it any wonder that so many prominent pols are taking a pass on membership in the club? The one who most recently did so was Brian Schweitzer, the former governor of Montana, who announced his decision not to run for the Senate over the weekend.
(More here.)
There are countless oddities in the way Washington works, but few as mystifying as lawmakers’ definition of the word “friend.”
In other, saner walks of life, it means someone you yearn to see. In the Senate, it can also mean someone you yearn to see under the wheels of your sport utility vehicle, writhing in agony and wheezing surrender.
I assume this was the usage that Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, had in mind when he called Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, “my friend” during a closely watched speech on Monday. After all, everything else about Reid’s remarks and the furious days leading up to them reflected a state of play between the two parties, and the two men, that no conventional dictionary would ever describe as amicable.
Right now, “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” as the Senate has been called, looks a whole lot more like the set of “The Jerry Springer Show.” Is it any wonder that so many prominent pols are taking a pass on membership in the club? The one who most recently did so was Brian Schweitzer, the former governor of Montana, who announced his decision not to run for the Senate over the weekend.
(More here.)
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